Under the Radar or Under Arrest: How Does Contact with the Juvenile Justice System Affect Delinquency and Academic Outcomes.

摘要

Although many studies have found that arrested youth are more likely than non-arrested youth to experience later maladjustment, methodological limitations restrict the generalizations of prior work. Perhaps the most noteworthy limitation in prior work is the possibility of selection effects, with arrested youth likely to have very different psychological and behavioral profiles pre-justice system contact than non-arrested youth. This leaves us wondering whether the observed maladjustment is due to the type of adolescent who comes to the attention of law enforcement or due the type of justice system interventions that arrested youth experience.This study overcomes these limitations by comparing the outcomes of demographically similar male adolescents who have committed the same crimes but who differ with regard to whether they were “caught” for their crimes. Using propensity score matching to compare arrested and non-arrested youth, I investigated whether contact with the justice system does, infact, contribute to school-related outcomes, substance use, and delinquency and whether these relations vary based on whether arrested youth are formally processed or diverted from the system.